Tag: onion is the underdog

Public access cable television is probably even more socialist than PBS, so it makes sense that the most Soviet-themed band on The Weird List, Dolchnakov Brigade, has found a pretty steady gig there. This week, they’ll be making their third appearance in less than a year on The Chris Gethard Show, a public-access comedy show that broadcasts Wednesday nights at 11 p.m. in Manhattan on…well, we can’t seem to find the name of the channel on the TCGS website, but you New Yorkers are a resourceful bunch. We’re sure you can figure it out.

Apparently host Mr. Gethard—and disappointingly, that name is pronounced more like “Geth-Heard”—discovered Dolchnakov Brigade when he Googled the phrase “weirdest band in the world.” Clearly, the man has excellent taste in Google search terms.

Anyway, this week marks The Chris Gethard Show‘s one-year anniversary, so congrats to him and all his minions (the Getharders?) for weathering the dog-eat-dog world of public access TV and pushing out 50 episodes in the process. I don’t think we even managed 50 blog posts in our first year, so that Gethard guy must sleep, like, never.

Oh and if you don’t live in New York and/or don’t watch cable: The Chris Gethard Show is also archived online. Look for Episode 50 to see Dolchnakov in all their “Palevish” glory. And no, we still don’t know what “Palevish” means.

Who says our democracy is broken? Once again, our readers have spoken! And by spoken, I mean clicked little buttons on our Submit and Vote page. And what they have told us is this: Dolchnakov Brigade are a really weird fucking band.

How weird, you ask? Well, they didn’t receive a single “Not weird” vote, which in the entire history of TWBITW has never…oh wait, sorry it’s actually happened before four other times. Still, not too shabby.

Beyond that, what can we tell you about these guys? Honestly, not much. The “About Us” page of their website is just a random list of shit like “crawling creatures” and “Bruce Lee” and “Rush Limbaugh in a coma.” Which is kind of an awesome way to describe your band, but not very helpful to us bloggers. We want easy answers, Dolchnakov Brigade! Why do you deny us the simple pleasures our short attention spans demand?

But with a little digging, here’s what else we’ve found out: They seem Russian but they’re actually from Brooklyn. (Okay, we didn’t actually have to dig for that one…they emailed and told us.) Their music is basically lo-fi, campy synth-pop. We’re pretty sure the main guy is named Clark Silkmer, but he might also be a dude named Shlomi Lavie who, randomly, is also the drummer for Marcy Playground. (Yes, they’re still around; we were surprised, too.) The other band members seem to consist of two backup dancer/singers, a keyboard player, and a rubber rat named RAT! who produces their beats on an MPC pad. They have a Tumblr. The organizing principal behind the band is summed up by the word “Palevish” which we thought was Russian but we think now might just be made up. The band’s official website describes it like this:

“Palevish! (pronounced Pal-Eh-Veesh) is the concept of taking a seemingly random and meaningless idea and repetitively executing it with full conviction like it was a matter of life and death. Then, at some point, it becomes a matter of life and death.”

I can get behind that. Kinda sounds like the organizing principal behind this whole blog, actually.

And who knows? Maybe that’s all you really need to know about Dolchnakov Brigade. Or maybe they’ll reveal more about themselves when they feel the world is ready.

Their live show still seems to be a bit of a work in progress, but they have made a few low-budg videos that are pretty creepy/hilarious. Here’s the one for their catchiest tune, “Onion Is the Underdog.” Respect!